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Bouncing Robots Exploring Planets?
revision1_1 writes: "New bouncing robots could advance planetary exploration by leaps and bounds. The exploration of other planets could benefit from a giant leap for
robot-kind, according to researchers in New Mexico. Rather than use wheels or legs, robots could rove across alien landscapes far more effectively by bounding over the surface in an almost random fashion, they say." Well, science hasn't given me talking fruit and a jet pack yet, but this looks pretty close.
Given how much of the planet we have to explore, pretty much any place they bounce is going to be interesting.
Although, random bouncing can still eventually get you where you want to be. Another New Scientist article says the military is looking into this as an option to replace current anti-tank mines.
See, right now the U.S. refuses to sign with other countries in the anti-personnel mine ban. Reason, they are afraid of their anti-tank fields getting cleared.
But if the mines communicated with one another, they would start hopping around again once a path was cleared, stopping once the gap was filled.
Same researcher, same deal. Presumably the NASA bots would just keep hopping 'till they hit something useful. Still faster then crawling around, or getting stuck...
Hm. Perhaps a combination of the two. Crawling for precision maneuvering, hopping to avoid getting stuck, or to cover a lot of ground?
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
These are the most expensive Weebles yet!
Prior Art will not allow any patents though.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Or is it "pronk"?
(According to Cat's Paws and Catapults [the name of the author escapes me at the moment], the name of the 'gait' ("gallop","trot",etc.) for a creature pushing upwards off of all four legs simultaneously is called 'pronk'. I wonder, would this apply to these robots, the pictures of which imply that they are 'one-legged'?)
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On landing, the hopper's egglike shape allows it to pop back upright before reassessing its position, ready for the next leap.
Weebles Wobble But They DON'T FALL DOWN!!!
Neato!
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--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Thanks for the warning! :-)
What "natural" setting? In case you haven't noticed, there isn't much "nature" on Mars!
Concern for the enviroment stems from concerns about life, not about "pristine states". Earth's "pristine natural setting" is a planet with no life and not much in the way of free oxygen. Concerns about the condition of Mars are limited to how the inhabitants of Mars feels about that environment. As of right now, there aren't very many.
The universe doesn't give a damn!
(not to mention Mars is pretty big; if our robot was a nuclear bomb it still would have no particular effect on Mars!)
You are a murderer of innocent vegetables.
How can you stand the torture? all those ears of corn screaming as they are ripped off their stalks.
I am proudly a meatatarian, and I wear fur. lots of it. even my underwear.
FUR- we evolved, they didn't. Sucks to be them. (tm)
EOM
Don't disturb the dirt... the dirt firsters will hunt you down.
-- toolie
The Special Forces are developing/experimenting with microuavs. These things are less than 2inches long and transmit images back to a ground station. Great for urban settings.
-- toolie
Because the last time we thought of bouncing probes, it was to kill eachother and blow up things...
http://ravecentral.com/dambusters.html
just my blog and pix
However, I'm not sure that it's really all that wise to be sending all kinds of junk all over Mars. Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet. Just reminds me a little too much of finding Bud cans laying all over after a rodeo.
________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Imagine these things decked out with sharp spikes and dropped from bombers by the thousands landing in a downtown area and just jumping and shredding people to pieces. Put a counter on them and the one with the most frags goes to the Smithsonian.
A few of these I am sure are wandering the universe, bouncing among the planets.
Oh, and science has already brought you talking fruit. It is called LSD-25.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
I can just imagine one these things bouncing around, suddenly disappearing into a cave, a 30 foot deep dustbowl, or a 2-mile deep canyon.
There had better be a LOT of these things in each package to justify the overall cost of getting them to the surface of another planet and be willing to lose a few!
As far as fuel is concerned, would combustion be the best? Maybe a slightly slower process, each little guy would slowly charge a big capacitor with solar panels, then use up the stored charge in a big burst for a jump at a time.
Dunno how dissecting grasshoppers came into a topic where it sounds like somebody was just watching them & came up with an engineering idea, but whatever...
The only reason you have the luxury of being a vegetarian is because "modern" society has the means of bringing you the selection of vegetables from all over the world that you need to maintain your dietary needs. If you were part of a hunter/gatherer tribe, you'd eat meat or die of malnutrition.
Meat represents CONCENTRATED nutrition - nutrition which has been gathered, refined & stored in a high-calorie, high-protein form through biology - if humans didn't eat meat, there isn't a chance in hell that humans would have made it out of the tree-swinging stage.
It's fairly well-known that it is possible for a human in very good shape to run down (and kill from exhaustion) a horse, over some period of time (I think it was at least a few days). The _reason_ that a human can do that, is because they can scarf down in a couple minutes the same calories & nutrients (relative to body size) that it takes the horse HOURS to eat. And the human is NOT getting that energy by scarfing down lettuce!
Hmmm...this could be quite a popular sport-hunting event, even more so than shooting those dumb clay "pigeons".
I'm pretty sure that it has been documented as possible for a human with excellent hunting skills & health (which, admittedly, does exclude most of the current world's population :) to run a herbivore like a horse or deer to death, over the period of multiple days.
:)
I'm not sure I can find a web reference though, so you can call me an idiot and feel pretty comfortable about not being proven wrong
- How do you say splat in martian?
- If a NASA bouncer crashes on mars and no one is there does it still go splat?
- How do you stop a NASA martian explorer? Simple, invite the "SLAM dunk champ" from Regnas 5 to Mars and point him to the new ball!
I like it, now if they will simply let me work on my mouse trap powered rocket...."Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Yes, one or two might fall down crevases. So what. Get a bunch of 'em.
I actually had an idea along these lines while looking over the rules for RoboWars on their website (the British version). One of the really important objectives for robots in that series is mobility - many of the challenges involve knocking things over or avoiding obstacles such as the hostile house robots, pits, and uneven terrain. I thought that a robot which moves by bouncing or jumping, rather than rolling or walking, might be ideal for overcoming such difficulties, as well as confounding the usual combat techniques used by other robots. The fact that NASA would be interested in similar techniques for their exploration robots suggests that maybe RoboWars isn't quite as inapplicable to real life as one might think.
Now if only NASA could build its robots on something closer to a RoboWars budget...
...talking fruit are you looking for Mr Taco?
BlackNova Traders
I think the idea is to have lots of these things running around because they're so cheap. Sure some will get stuck or destroyed, but the majority will survive. You can see from this picture how small (check out the size of the chips relative to the overall size) and inexpensive it must be.
It's easy to get robots to bounce! Just give 'em enough caffiene. I do it all the time here at work... just switch out the decaf, and my useless robotic cow-orkers are repainting the building, talking at 100mph, and yes, bouncing!
What good will this be when it accidently bounces into a crevasse? I appreciate the bounding mode of transportation, and once again we can look to the insect world on the best ways to accomplish this, but if there isn't any control then what is the purpose? Movement for the sake of motion is wasteful. Movement to get to a specific different area (over that rock, 20 feet to the right, etc.) is meaningful.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
You could throw out a dozen of these to search in all directions
Now that would be super-cool to witness. Mechanical 'grasshopper' search teams bouncing around your backyard. I wonder if that 10 meter estimate is in the moons gravity or mars or earth or what...
TK
well Taco, if you want a jet pack you should join NASA. Then we'd have some "Geeks in Space" news again... :-)
# debian/rules
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Bouncing robots exploring other planets -- and Rob's complaining that he doesn't have talking fruit!?!
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Really? I mean, really really? If we are herbivores, then, why the heck don't we have fermenting vats in our stomachs? Last I checked, humans were omnivores, a type of animal that is biologically equipped to eat both plants and animals. Omnivores. Yes, we're not carnivores; for crying out loud, though, we're certainly not herbivores. Stating such is pure rhetoric, and whatever scientific evidence is used to back said rhetoric is carefully picked from context, massaged, and paraphrased so as to conform to the ideological goal rather than actually prove it. The Vegitarian Resource Group has a good short article posted here that goes into a bit more depth on the science of the matter.
Besides, my point wasn't one of material necessity but of moral obligation. You don't *need* to eat meat; therefore, you *ought* not eat meat.
Much like how since we don't *need* to have premarital sex, we *ought* not have premarital sex, no? Your morality != my morality. I, for one, happen to really, really like things like Tandoori Chicken and Beef Bourguignon. You'll have to pry my fork out of my cold, dead hands before I'll stop eating such things. I also maintain a diet high in veggies, since I know that eating veggies is healthy for me, and while I do enjoy eating meat, I do so in moderation, since I know that eating too much can be bad for my health (much like the glass of wine I have with dinner.)
How, though, do you see killing and eating one form of life as opposed to killing an eating another form of life as being more or less just or moral? For non photo-synthetic lifeforms here on earth, it is NECESSARY to kill and consume other life forms to survive. Killing and consuming plants still involves the premature termination of a living creature for the sake of your continued survival (unless, of course, you only eat plants that have died of natural causes after completing their entire life cycle, which I doubt that is the case.) If your morality dictates that you should not eat animals because their life is more valuable than that of plants, I understand and respect your views, even if I do not share them; it certainly is much easier to ignore the fact that you're stealing the life of something else to continue your own when it doesn't flee, thrash, and bleed when killed. But don't expect me to feel the least bit guilty or morally depraved for eating meat; my life is built entirely off the sacrifice of countless other lives, both plant and animal, and I can accept that fact without remorse.
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Wow. My very own imposter, someone who aspires to be what I have become. You love me! You really really love me! *sob*
-- Anne Marie
They're not worried about making careful precision measurements, as you'd know if you read the article:
Robinett realised that this somewhat chaotic approach to navigation was a very cheap and effective way of getting about, compared to the complicated planning that most robots need to move.
"We're just very used to wheels and complete control."
It's for rapidly getting around the planet and covering as much area as possible, figuring out where the really interesting parts are, and then perhaps later sending back a precision probe for more careful analysis.
-- Anne Marie
It's certainly an interesting idea, and would probably work well. However, as mentioned before, the robots would have to either be very tough or very cheap. The major problem I can see is that because of the level of toughness required, it would be hard to get much analysis equipment to work from inside the shell of the 'bot. Perhaps these could be used to 'scout' and then a more traditional tracked or wheeled bot used to actually investigate. That would also negate the problem of control; you would *want* the bots to bounce all over the place, beaming back collected info whenever they were able, so that you could send out a standard lander without getting it stuck, by plotting its path from the information sent back by the bouncing bots.
The return of Jumpman!
Boing.. boing.. boing..
Hopefully these planets will have ladders randomly placed everywhere.
BilldaCat
If the scientists need any help writing the code that will drive their randomly bouncing robot scouts, I may be able to help them. I still have the source code to the bouncing ball applet I wrote in a class a couple years ago...
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
The problem with bounding robots, is that the communication time is so slow, they need to have something that can move very slowly and make very carefull movements. Remember the rover moved one step at a time controlled by earth. To have something moving randomly around would limit the ability of researchers to look at specific things and to be careful. -Moondog
See the Center for Distributed Robotics website for lots of info, demos, etc. Or read this article from the UMN CS Dept Newsletter featuring this project.
Just to prove there's nothing new under the sun, I recall seeing movies of an experimental WWII mine-clearing device that was essentially a heavy sphere that had some sort of rockets or other propellant devices. It would be launched and bound through an area in a random fashion, supposedly detonating any mines. It looked pretty hazardous to be around, so I don't think it was ever used, but it was quite entertaining to watch.
what damage will it to do the "planet" it is exploring? where is green-peace at a time like this.
Greenpeace in Mars. Hmm. Would that make them Redpeace? Besides, we all know that Mars, that so-calledd "planet", has to be preserved in its pristine natural setting until we arrive in hordes, build MarsDisney themeparks and eat Earth chocolate bars.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
[W]hy would mother Nature tell us that we don't need to eat meat to get by in life while giving us sharpened teeth to eat meat better?
We have neither the sharpened teeth nor the intestinal infrastructure necessary to be meat eaters. Besides, my point wasn't one of material necessity but of moral obligation. You don't *need* to eat meat; therefore, you *ought* not eat meat.
But eating meat is a part of almost every human culture.
I do frown upon senseless violence to animals
Then don't kill them and eat their little bodies. It's entirely senseless.
So's spousal abuse. Social prevalence does not make it anything more than just popular. People like beating their spouses and they like eating their meat. It doesn't help your point.
-- Anne Marie
Just like the Viking missions, two spacecraft give you two chances to succeed. They are launched at different times, in slightly different orbits. The arrival times are usually set to be a couple of weeks apart, mostly because of limited ground crew resources.
If there had been two such Mars probes, after the first one crashed there might have been enough time to diagnose the bug and upload a fix before the second one arrived.
Also, two probes do not cost twice as much as one. Only the launch costs are duplicated. The R&D costs are the same, and the money needed to build two one-off engineering prototypes (the probes) is less than twice that for building one.
Ob disclaimer: I realize that some persistent defects in two mechanically and electrically similar probes will fail in the same way, and may very well not be fixable from the ground. But, that's no reason not to try.
--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Here's a picture of the guts of the thing (which in government-speak, they call "Long Range Mesoscale Mobile Hopping Platform". Guess "hopper" doesn't cut it for the bureaucrats.)
First off, this sounds like a really interesting approach! It seems, at first, that it would go a long way to avoid problems with surface obstructions (e.g. large rocks).
But, on further thought, can you imagine one of these things trying to hop out of a valley of loose sand? Sand gets kicked around, all right, but it'd be just digging itself in deeper and deeper! (It'd be even worse in an area where there was mud or a pond, but there's not too much of that on the moon <grin> and doubtful there'd be much on Mars.)
Sure, you could make a larger "base". That is, the part that gets thrust against the surface. But, then there's another issue. From the article:
If you made the base larger, how would you make sure that it was on the bottom?
Maybe a larger, birdcage-like superstructure? That might make it roll back into the proper orientation, but it would also add to the weight of the hopper and lessen its range. Further, it would risk the possibility of it getting mired in a crater:
Same kinds of problems if it should land in a narrow ravine... it could hop itself right across to the other side of the ravine and imbed itself in that wall.
I'd like to think they've considered these problems, but I saw no mention of them in the article. Any other ideas on potential problems and their solutions?
That sounds like environmentalism taken quite a bit too far. That is almost as bad as the people who think we shouldn't colonize mars because "we'll just ruin it like we ruined earth". Nevermind that there's nothing on Mars to be ruined. No evidence of life, just thousands of acres of dust.
If bouncing "litter" helps us one little bit in exploring mars, I say go for it. Mars isn't doing us any good just sitting there, all pristine.
Leave it to us humans to destroy the beauty of planets that we have yet to even inhabit with bouncing bundles of robotic goodness.
Cogito, ergo sum.
"One small step for man... one giant for mankind"
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
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